Named for a department store owner, Hudson made the best debut in motoring history
Hudson Motor Car Company took its name from Joseph L. Hudson, the Detroit department store founder who put up the starting money. Its first model, the low-priced Hudson Twenty, sold 4,508 units in its opening year, the strongest first-year production the automobile industry had ever seen.
Eight Detroit businessmen incorporated the firm on 20 February 1909, with about $90,000 from Hudson, who became chairman, aiming for a car priced under $1,000. The industry veterans among them included Roy D. Chapin Sr., who had worked with Ransom E. Olds, and the engineer Howard E. Coffin. Advertising brought in some 4,000 deposits of $25, and the first car rolled out of a leased former Aerocar factory on 3 July 1909.
Rapid growth demanded a bigger plant, designed by Albert Kahn's firm and opened on 29 October 1910 on a 22-acre former farm at Jefferson and Conner avenues. Output reached 6,486 cars in 1911, and from 1914 American-market Hudsons were left-hand drive. The Massachusetts coachbuilder Biddle and Smart delivered 41,000 bodies in 1926 alone, until Hudson's own $10 million steel body plant opened that July; the contract ended in 1930 and Biddle and Smart soon folded.
In 1929 Hudson and its Essex brand built a combined 300,000 cars, helped by factories in Belgium and at Brentford in London, making Hudson the third largest American carmaker after Ford and Chevrolet. The company pioneered dual brakes, dashboard warning lights for oil pressure and the generator, and the first balanced crankshaft, which let its 1916 Super Six engine spin faster while staying smooth.
In 1954 Hudson merged with Nash-Kelvinator to create American Motors Corporation, and the Hudson name disappeared after the 1957 model year. Chapin's son, Roy Jr., later became president of AMC in the 1960s. Collectors prize the brand's distinctive styling, and the Hudson Hornet in particular can fetch high prices.
Source: Hudson Motor Car Company
